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Just 137 crypto miners use 2.3% of total U.S. power

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Re: Just 137 crypto miners use 2.3% of total U.S. power

#411

Post by LtWorf »

stanleykm wrote: post #180
digging wrote: post #57

I'm not a crypto proponent per se, but I do feel the need to be reasonable about it, and this reads like pure emotional anti-cryptocurrency sentiment. (edit: while I still can, I'm going to jump in and repeat that I'm criticizing this as a bad article which isn't saying anything very meaningful on its own. Thanks everyone for doing the author's work for them and gathering more data. I won't be upset if it's proven th…

> If Bitcoin mining ends up using a higher proportion of renewable energy than, say, traditional banking, it could be seen as a net good for crypto use to rise On the other hand if crypto being on renewables is displacing things that otherwise would have been - is that a win?

He doesn't care. He just wants to do his get rich quick schemes.

Re: Just 137 crypto miners use 2.3% of total U.S. power

#412

Post by JoeAltmaier »

lurking15 wrote: post #341
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On this scale? Easily detected and killed. Just check their power bill. It has gotten completely out of hand. What was intended to be run on personal computers has become a juggernaut of rampant egregious resource consumption.

> Easily detected and killed. Just check their power bill. except that bitcoin doesn't inherently require any fixed amount of energy and that's why there's a difficulty adjustment, of course this fact seems to go over most people's heads and suggests to me they don't actually understand it

2% of national energy consumption. It's not rocket science, to catch the big offenders.

Re: Just 137 crypto miners use 2.3% of total U.S. power

#413

Post by jakupovic »

Symbiote wrote: post #410
jakupovic wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I won't discuss this further. >It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it. Little sneaky to put that last comment there, useless completely and spiteful? Just because your hypothesis turned out to be wrong doesn't mean you cannot admit it

I'll gladly admit spite towards people wrecking the climate for their own greed. Cryptocurrency miners rank worse than oil and coal executives in my book. (I've seen nothing to suggest my hypothesis is wrong.)

Well you may need the other commenter to give you a walking tour as you seem stuck in: "Bitcoin bad booo"

Re: Just 137 crypto miners use 2.3% of total U.S. power

#414

Post by JoeAltmaier »

theultdev wrote: post #208
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On this scale? Easily detected and killed. Just check their power bill. It has gotten completely out of hand. What was intended to be run on personal computers has become a juggernaut of rampant egregious resource consumption.

Hey I'm the government man here to audit your power bill. Please go over everything you spend your power on and the government will tell you whether you can continue to have power/internet. Hey, why are you nervous? Oh looks like it was just a hot summer. ...oh what's this... sorry you don't have a heat pump, we will take your A/C, now spend 50k on a new heat pump one. Better get started it's going to be a hot one. e…

Those are a fraction of what it takes to be a miner?

Not sure what that was about.

Re: Just 137 crypto miners use 2.3% of total U.S. power

#415

Post by Symbiote »

latchkey wrote: post #409
Symbiote wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no evidence at all that the power can't be transmitted elsewhere. There are high-capacity transmission lines in all directions. A ~600MW wind farm was connected to the grid right at the dam relatively recently. I won't discuss this further. It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.

This is the second time, you've misconstrued my statements and inserted your own dialog. I didn't say it can't be transmitted elsewhere. I said that it was expensive to do so and I've seen with my own two eyes the proof of that expense. The proof of that expense is that it hasn't been done yet, despite years of opportunities and the fact that it can be done (which I agree with you on). For the record, my salary does…

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39293003

Re: Just 137 crypto miners use 2.3% of total U.S. power

#416

Post by kkielhofner »

quandrum wrote: post #241
acdha wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is no comparison made to the energy consumption of the traditional banking industry, which I am sure is not a particularly energy-efficient industry. This is your first mistake: the traditional banking system does not have a security model predicated on the ability to waste power. Bitcoin does, and it’s dynamic so there’s no way to waste less power which isn’t explicitly ceding control. The second error is tr…

There's also the fact all the power draw of the traditional banking industry is also in the crypto and not accounted for in this analysis. Crypto still needs POS systems and accounts and large staffs in large offices and all the trappings of finance outside of mining.

Precisely. I don't know how people can argue crypto power consumption against the banking industry when you can drive down main street in any city and pass 15 bank branches and see ATMs every 100ft.

Bank of America alone has 69m customers and real people have real needs - things like going to a branch occasionally, calling customer service, taking out cash, etc. Not only is BoA itself larger in terms of users than all of crypto (I've done the analysis, checked block explorers, etc) it's actually usable by real people in the real world for real activity that contributes to the real economy and actually provides value and utility other than pancake swapping your doodle coins for poodle coins.

Re: Just 137 crypto miners use 2.3% of total U.S. power

#417

Post by Retric »

015a wrote: post #199
Retric wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This 2.3% mostly came from fossil fuels not new green generation capacity. You need to consider where these miners are located based on electricity costs and what infrastructure is built there not simply a hypothetical grid where arbitrary power can be moved anywhere at zero losses.

Wrong. And not just a little wrong; a LOT wrong. 86% of new energy capacity added in the United States in 2023 was from non-fossil fuel sources. [1] https://www.energy.gov/eere/vehicles/articles/fotw-1304-augu... .

Capacity isn’t the same as utilization. Crypto is on 24/7 but the rest of the demand curve isn’t flat, so most of the day there’s excess capacity. During peak demand batteries charged by solar where used to meet demand, but nobody is building battery banks to store solar energy for 2AM.

Non battery backed Solar instead offsets power used in the day but that’s simply a cost saving measure making it independent of increases in demand. This is why China added 210 GW of solar in 2023 year even though demand didn’t rise by nearly that much. Wind faces the same issue due to dependability.

As such the added demand from crypto has ~zero impact on how much non battery backed solar or wind gets added. Instead it simply increased how often fossil fuel power plants get turned off.

Re: Just 137 crypto miners use 2.3% of total U.S. power

#418

Post by bdcravens »

infamouscow wrote: post #392
bdcravens wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While you're not incorrect about the flaws of regulation, none of what you said is an argument for laissez-faire.

Laissez-faire is the default. It's only through the indoctrination of young impressionable minds by the state that people become persuaded by arguments the state should intrude into things.

I would think it's injuries and deaths from the lack of safety and standards that would be far more persuasive. It's never about trusting the state; it's understanding that unchecked capitalism is less trustworthy. That's not to say it's inherently evil, but quite to the contrary: profit is inevitably self-serving, and only outside forces can ensure that the needs of others are considered.

Re: Just 137 crypto miners use 2.3% of total U.S. power

#419

Post by latchkey »

Symbiote wrote: post #415
latchkey wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the second time, you've misconstrued my statements and inserted your own dialog. I didn't say it can't be transmitted elsewhere. I said that it was expensive to do so and I've seen with my own two eyes the proof of that expense. The proof of that expense is that it hasn't been done yet, despite years of opportunities and the fact that it can be done (which I agree with you on). For the record, my salary does…

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39293003

That's the third time you've missed. Your rage is blinding your thinking process, which is becoming quite entertaining.

As I said, I no longer mine anything and haven't since ETH went to PoS. Which, by the way, consumes very little power now.

Re: Just 137 crypto miners use 2.3% of total U.S. power

#420

Post by latchkey »

Symbiote wrote: post #410
jakupovic wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I won't discuss this further. >It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it. Little sneaky to put that last comment there, useless completely and spiteful? Just because your hypothesis turned out to be wrong doesn't mean you cannot admit it

I'll gladly admit spite towards people wrecking the climate for their own greed. Cryptocurrency miners rank worse than oil and coal executives in my book. (I've seen nothing to suggest my hypothesis is wrong.)

At least your bias is clear now.
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